Ah, lending my books is a touchy subject. I am very anal about the condition of my reads, and I am so very reluctant to lend them out to others. I have had some bad traumatizing experiences with this, and so I try to limit my heartbreak with regards to my books. When I have lent out books, several times I never got them back. This is particularly painful if the book is out of print. Ouch! I’m not going to get another copy unless I scour eBay or used book stores, and then condition is sometimes a factor. What if the book is all wrinkly and bent? That makes me cringe – I hate spine curls and dinged up books!

Once I lent a book to my niece (yes, I still love you, Jen, but the pain still lingers). She returned it. In pieces. Ouch again! It was A Game of Thrones, and she loved the book so much she carried it around with her so she could read it whenever she had a spare moment. She kept it in her book bag. The book suffered terrible abuse in that bag! Dents, scuffs, crinkles! Worse still – it was torn in half!! My poor, poor book! I have since repurchased it for my Kindle, and honestly, it is so much easier to carry it around with me, now that it isn’t a huge, heavy hardcover. Still, that’s not the point. One of my favorite books suffered a horrible end in the dark, dank interior of a book bag. Sigh.

Short answer – no, I don’t lend my books out, and since most of them are eBooks now, anyway, I have a good excuse to not lend them out.

Long answer – yes, if it is a book that I have no intention of keeping, I will lend it out. As long as it’s not a keeper, I spread the love around. Right now, though, my mom is listening to audio books and doesn’t want to read as many physical books, my niece is in Korea, and my reader buddy has a Nook, so she just asks for book recommendations because she wants to read them with her shiny new eReader. So I find myself donating more books to the library, and since I check so many out of the library, I feel like I’m giving back, just a little bit, for all of the enjoyment my weekly visits there give me.

Post navigation

2 thoughts on “TGIF–Book Love”

Aww that is really sweet that you donate to the library. I really should go through my shelf and get rid of some! But your poor, poor book! How does it get torn in half!?! One of my favorite books, Forget You, got chewed up and another one of my favorites, The Ghost and the Goth, was used as a prop for my sister’s project and it got thrown on the ground repeatedly. I can see where it would be a touchy subject!
-Katelyn

Ouch– poor A Game of Thrones! (I tend to personify books, I’m afraid.) I cringe at the memory of lending my second-print-ever edition of Prince Caspian (part of a box set) to my sister.. and receiving it a month later with the cover torn off. She stepped on it, apparently… and I have not recovered yet. All the same, I also love lending books as long as the physical book is not special to me in some way.